Here we go again, beginning the "next" project. This will be a long post I suspect, but I will try and stick to the facts. So let's begin at the beginning with a little history on the car.
My connection with the car began around 2010 when a friend of more that 40 years who lives in ND (I live in WA) contacted me and told me he just bought a 70 RR off eBay. He told me the car was in Medford OR, had recently been painted (EV2), had a tilt front end and was "ready to be built". He could not find a shipper who would pick it up and since I was planning on going to ND that October to attend his daughter's wedding, he was asking if I would get it and bring it out when I came with him paying for fuel. After getting the car I inspected it and realized that while it was shiny it needed everything as there was a lot of "shade tree" things on the car (more on that later). In the end, my buddy didn't want it and told me to sell it, I decided to buy/keep it as the 70 RR is my favorite B body.
The car itself is a LA car, originally a 383, AT, manual steering, manual brake car. Looks to have been brown exterior and creme/brown interior. It appears someone pulled it from a field sometime along the way as it kind of looks like it was a parts car perhaps. It has a funky roll cage in it that screams "stock car". 68 Charger instrument cluster with Tic Tac. They mounted a gas tank in the trunk and mounted a flip lock on the top of the right rear quarter panel "charger style" (why they didn't put it on the drivers side like a Charger is beyond me). The car has a 8.75 with what I believe are 3.91 gears but the the pinion bearing is trashed. They sealed off the trunk from the passenger compartment with a variety of sheet metal which they painted with what looks like POR15. The tilt front end is interesting, well executed but requires 2 bolts to be removed in order to tilt it, however the hood can be opened normally. They removed the inner fender wells and ran tubes from the firewall to the front of the frame rails. These tubes connect to plates that are welded to the firewall and are connected to tubes that connect to the inner sub-frame connectors (stock car magic....). The wiring harness is present but pretty torn up. The trunk floor is toast but the overall body is decent (although I have no idea what is under the paint). The paint was nice but seems that they did not let the primer cure before painting as it has off gassed through the paint creating millions of little craters/bubbles.
Over the years I thought about what to do with it, how to build it, etc. At one point I really wanted to make a Superbird clone out of it but thats cost prohibitive and given it is a real RM car, I decided to just build it as a hotrod. While at a buddys shop we were discussing drive trains and he asked me what I was going to put into it. I stated I would try and find a RV 440 or something but that I needed a 4 spd as that is iconic to me. I laughingly said "it needs a 426 Hemi" but.... He immediately responded that he had all the parts to built a 426; he showed me a 1966 block that had been in a race car and been windowed but repaired and reinstalled then raced, heads, crank, etc. I am a gun guy with deep connections to that industry and he was a budding gun guy so a trade was made. Subsequently, I did some trading with a guy at a machine shop who went through the short block and heads. He sonic checked and magnafluxed the block stating it was good.
My intentions - I intend to keep it basically as it is with the tilt front end, put the Hemi into it with a 833 behind it and of course pistol grip. I am going to install an air grabber hood (have one that will require some work). I will make the air grabber work electrically. I will convert the tilt release to electric. Going to install a stock looking interior, but might make a custom instrument cluster or use a DD version (if I can come up with the $$). I am going to put EFI on it as well and run a factory big oval single 4BBL air cleaner (had to pay like $400 for that).
Follow along, this will not be fast as I am working with a limited budget but there is a lot to do. I did have to order a new exhaust rocker for the engine. Have a Mopar purple Hyd cam for it and some big headers.
Some pictures
